Low Voter Turnout Cited by School Board Foes

By LYNETTE HOLLOWAY

Published: June 7, 1999

The New York City school board elections last month drew the lowest voter turnout in their 29-year history, according to preliminary results released last week, prompting the Giuliani administration to renew its call to abolish the boards.

''There has been depressingly low turnouts in school board elections for years now, and it really shows that the parents are looking for radical changes in the school system,'' Anthony P. Coles, the senior adviser to Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, said on Friday. ''They don't have confidence in the status quo and don't believe the status quo is as responsive as they can be.''

The turnout for the election on May 18 was estimated at 2 percent, said Daniel DeFrancesco, executive director of the City Board of Elections. Mr. DeFrancesco expects election commissioners to certify the results on Tuesday.

Local school board elections have always been plagued by low voter turnout because of apathy and the timing of the races. Last month's election was hobbled by a new blow. It was the first election since the State Legislature voted in 1996 to transfer the power of the city's 32 school boards to the Chancellor and district superintendents after patronage and corruption were uncovered. School board members are responsible for suggesting candidates for superintendent and deciding school zoning issues.

''The main thing is there is no power left on the school boards,'' Mr. DeFrancesco said, explaining the low turnout. ''Before, they picked everything from superintendents to principals to assistant principals to the glaze on the floor and the wax. It's no longer like that.''

Mr. Giuliani has had a tenuous relationship with the city's 32 school boards, calling them ineffective. As he considers a run for the Senate, he has intensified his complaints and in April called for the boards and the Board of Education to be abolished and be replaced with an education commissioner accountable to him.

But the Giuliani administration faces an uphill battle. Any such measure would require the approval of the Legislature, which has resisted such efforts in the past, including those by Gov. George E. Pataki.

''We have now hit an all-time low,'' said Steven D. Sanders, a Democrat of Manhattan who is chairman of the Assembly Education Committee. Mr. Sanders led a charge to overhaul the school boards in 1996. ''A 2 percent turnout clearly signals that it is time before the next election to revisit and re-evaluate the functions and purpose of a school board.''

He said that the boards could eventually be replaced by leadership teams made up of parents, teachers and principals responsible for school-based management. The 1996 measure mandated the creation of the teams, which are scheduled to be in place in October.

Mary Ellen Maxwell, president of the National School Board Association, based in Alexandria, Va., said a low voter turnout should not signal the end of the city's school board elections, because turnouts are down throughout the country.

''I'm really concerned that people are not more interested in the public election process,'' she said. ''No one attends a school board meeting unless there is an issue, and they don't come to vote for the same reason.''

Since the boards were established in New York City in 1970 to improve parental involvement in the schools, voters have gone to the polls to fill the nine positions on each of the 32 boards. The unpaid board members serve three-year terms.

Participation was highest in the first election, when 14 percent of the city's eligible voters turned out, but it quickly dwindled. The turnout rebounded to 12 percent in 1993, when talk about condom distribution and teaching tolerance for gay people drew voters to the polls.

Kathleen Stassen Berger, president of School Boards for Equity, Accountability and Community, an advocacy group that represents members on 20 of the city's community school boards, said the future of school board elections should not depend on the turnout. ''It's like you say let's get rid of judges because nobody votes for judges,'' she said. ''Community school boards serve an important function to the body politic. How many people vote for them should not be the question.''Ms. Berger said, however, that the school board elections should be moved to November.

Many Democrats, who control the State Assembly, have favored doing so because the turnout is higher in general elections and because far more Democrats than Republicans are registered in New York City. Most Republicans, who control the State Senate, oppose the idea.